


An Unfair Game

by infinite_diversity



Category: House M.D.
Genre: 8x19, Angst, Cancer, Chemotherapy, Dark, Everybody Dies, Everything is angst and everything hurts, M/M, OreOTP, Pain, Season/Series 08, Slash, The C-Word, You can't win this, hilson, no real plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-25
Updated: 2012-11-25
Packaged: 2017-11-19 13:32:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/573810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinite_diversity/pseuds/infinite_diversity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As per usual, I was planning on perfectly cute fluff and it turned into an angsty character study. </p><p>This takes place during 8x19 "The C-Word". House tells Wilson that he can't win - but Wilson finds a reason that keeps him alive. No real plot. Angst. Hilson. Enjoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Unfair Game

Life isn't fair.

That was one of the first things James Wilson learnt in his life.

"Why him?", he asked the silent white walls of his flat about Danny.

"Why him?", he asked again, when Melanie went to prom with Kyle.

Wilson didn't become an oncologist because he wanted to be reminded of just what a bitch life could be. He also probably didn't choose his career based on what House called his 'fetish for neediness'. He thinks.

Did he want to fix lives because he couldn't fix his own?

Was he using their pain to punish himself?

 

He is lying on the sofa in House's apartment. There are tangled transparent tubes all around him, steadily filling his body with poison. Not for the first time he asks himself why on Earth he decided to do this, and he wonders if he is trying to punish himself after all. He doesn't know what for - he just knows that sometimes, pain isn't a bad thing. Pain means you're fighting. It means you have taken action; it rewards your sacrifices.

Wilson spends all his time around people in pain, and he knows his own thoughts don't actually make sense. 

"Why me?", he whispers, quietly, hoping House can't hear him being pathetic.

The fact that House is here suddenly hits him. He is in House's apartment, sweating against the sticky leather of the couch where his oversized sweatshirt has shifted to expose his skin. The air smells stale, and he wonders how long they have been in here. The room is dimly lit, like a fine layer of dust on an oil painting of a grey dawn. He can hear House moving somewhere, in another room. Wilson is painfully aware of every breath he takes. Everything hurts; it feels like his entire body is covered in flames. It seems like he could easily escape the pain, like he would step out of a fire - but he can't take that step, moving hurts too much. Breathing hurts. Thinking hurts. He tries for a few seconds to list the types of labile cells that are currently being killed off in his body, but he realises it's not nearly as comforting as he thought it would be. Unlike House, Wilson doesn't find science comforting; solving puzzles is not why he does medicine. 

And what puzzles does oncology have to offer anyway? It's a battlefield. 

On the battlefield, time passes only sometimes. It's like a gigantic hourglass filled with white sand. Too often it feels like time stops, as though the lightening of fiery pain had burnt the sand to deceptively beautiful fulgurite glass. Wilson drifts in and out of consciousness. The dim living room makes it impossible to get an idea of the world outside - he doesn't even know if it's day or night.

He begins to feel like someone is pressing cotton wool over his eyes and ears, and the constant, rapid beeping of the heart monitor next to him becomes dull. Hypotension, some part of his fuzzy brain informs him. And tachycardia. What a beautiful word, he thinks - sadly, knowing it in no way helps to reduce it.

 

Suddenly, House is there. He picks up the oxygen mask that fell on the floor some time ago and gently places it on Wilson's face. House's presence is the most comforting thing he has ever felt - he is cooling and warming at the same time, and he seems to radiate life, much more than the cold plastic of the oxygen mask and the dulling morphine in his veins. It doesn't make sense - House isn't the kind of guy you would associate with life. He's the one who is constantly knocking on death's door; liver failure, maybe, a motorcycling accident... And yet Wilson feels that if there is one person that could get him through this alive, it's Gregory House.

Given the situation, pretty much everybody would be sympathetic, caring, gentle. But House isn't everybody. The fact that he shows this side of his character - the fact that, contrary to all evidence, he does in fact possess it - is worth much more to Wilson than anything anyone else could ever do.

House is awkwardly half-kneeling next to the sofa, and Wilson is vaguely aware of how much that must be hurting his leg. "Don't ask. There's no answer. Some things just happen for no reason at all," House says quietly. Wilson can feel his rapid heartbeat against House's arm that is positioned on his chest to hold the oxygen mask in place. He wants the arm to stay there. Wilson tries to relax and takes a deep breath; through his blurry eyes he sees House's frown deepen at the wheezing sound. Wilson coughs and cringes as a new wave of fresher, clearer pain shoots through his body. Not for the first time, his mouth fills with the hot metal taste of blood. Blood that, by the way, is suffering from a serious leukocyte deficiency at the moment. Why did he do this?  

House, still sitting next to him on the floor, closes his eyes for a split second, just longer than a regular blink, and anyone not staring at his face as intently as Wilson would never have noticed the wetness that is now gone from House's blue eyes and makes his eyelashes form little shimmering triangles. Instinctively, Wilson wants to reach out and put a comforting hand on his friends shoulder - because that's what Wilson does, no matter the circumstances. The movement requires much more effort than he ever expected. It is the kind of effort it takes to slowly increase a terminal patient's morphine dosage beyond the tolerable level; it is the kind of effort it takes to then stay there and hold their hand as their heart stops beating. A complete oblivion. Nothing times infinity. 

Surprisingly softly, Wilson's veiny hand lands on House's shoulder - trembling with exhaustion. It threatens to slip away, and with one last desperate effort Wilson closes his fingers around the soothing dark grey fabric of House's shirt. House notices, and after the slightest hesitation, with the sudden tentative insecurity of a young child that sees an adult cry for the first time, he puts his own withered hand over Wilson's to keep it in place. Wilson's warm brown eyes, dull with pain, meet House's sky-blue, slightly reddened ones. Wilson feels safer than he ever has. It's like his first marriage or his first patient's remission day celebration. Better than that, really, because for the first time since he can remember, he feels a happiness that is entirely his own. 

But with comfort and joy comes the terrifying fear of losing these feelings, and suddenly Wilson feels like he is drowning. His fingers are still dug into House's shirt; it's his only anchor in an overwhelming sea of dread and pain. He gasps for air - it smells like House; whiskey, cologne and loneliness - and the realisation crushes him like a tidal wave: if he dies, he will never see House again. More importantly, he will never see that rare, solemn look of love and concern in his blue eyes, that look that no patient has ever received - he wonders if Cuddy ever did. The world begins to spin around Wilson as he tries to imagine the emptiness. He has been alone before, devastatingly sad and alone - but there had always been House, a universal constant, though himself as unpredictable and unstable as a summer storm. Without House at his side to fill the void inside him, the emptiness would destroy Wilson. He can't die now. He needs to survive this, even if it only buys him more time. He needs to be around House for as long as possible.

House murmurs something in a soothing voice, and Wilson realises that his face is wet with tears. His hands, the left one still clinging on to House, are shaking violently.

"I will win this." His voice is a hoarse whisper. "I'll win this for you."    

House lets his head sink down until their foreheads are touching; House's so much cooler than Wilson's. Through the oxygen mask, Wilson barely registers the older man's comforting scent, but it doesn't matter. This intimacy, the love, caring and concern in these blue eyes; those are what Wilson wants to stay alive for. Even if the cancer kills him eventually, he needs to be alive to see this look in House's eyes again. All his life, Wilson has cared for other people, he never needed anything else. Now his mind is filled with House's presence, and House is there to care for him, and nothing has ever felt this perfect.

In this horrible mess, in a grey room that smells of pain and death, with poison dripping into his arm and the taste of blood filling his mouth, everything suddenly becomes bearable. The pain is still excruciating, but it doesn't crush him anymore. With House, he can fight and win. Maybe life isn't that unfair, after all. 


End file.
